


Seven Minutes to Say Goodbye

by explodingnebulae



Category: Star Trek: The Original Series
Genre: M/M, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, post death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-28 04:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2718041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/explodingnebulae/pseuds/explodingnebulae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Taking place directly following Spock's death, Jim has a hard time coming to grips with reality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Minutes to Say Goodbye

It felt as if a part of himself had slipped away, as if oblivion itself had shunted its hand into his chest, breaking flesh and bone and physical being, to claw at his soul. It ripped and tore at his spirit with a bestial violence until he could not feel himself within his own body. There was no breath entering or exiting his lungs, no cool glass against his head, no metal floor beneath his body. There was nothing. He existed without existence. Breathed without breath. Felt without sensation. Physically, everything remained as it had, yet everything was internally ravaged. The once colorful, refined universe was now nebulous, a tarnished monochromatic hue.

There were arms reaching out for him, hands on his shoulders, fingers pressing into his flesh. They were only dull impressions, a small tremor on the scale, an ink smear on the page. An empty echo reverberated within his skull, bouncing back and forth in the hollowness of silence. His mind had been occupied with one matter or another, always two voices, double experiences, and now there was only the remnants of one. The sound slowly clarified itself as it repeated over and over again, each expression more urgent than its predecessor. Tangibility came next. He felt the noise crashing against his ears. Then fingers dug deeper.

“Jim! Jim!” snapped the voice. Jim? _Jim..?_ He tried to dig for a definition for the term, then heard the same word said on a different tongue. An agonizing tear ripped through him, evenly down his center mass, at the sound and reality struck him with the same amount of force. The different one had slipped away as deftly as it approached. He heard the word again, this time with clear recognition. He was Jim.

“No…”he muttered feebly. “No, no…” It seemed to be the only word that his body would vocally produce, regardless of any underlying desire to say something else. There wasn’t one.

The miniscule notes of recognition appeared to be enough to quiet the grating reiteration of his name. As the shock of reality’s presentation washed from his body, he regained control of himself. Muscles flexed, his shoulders tightening under the hand that refused to release it. Ever so slowly, he managed to shift his burning eyes and rest them on the possessor of the other portion of his soul. The voice in his head, the warmth in his veins, and the very air in his lungs was slumped against the floor on the other side of the glass, lifeless.

Still, he waited to see any sign of subsistence, a microscopic rise and fall of the chest, a slight movement behind lidded eyes, a twitch of the finger, but nothing came. He brought his hand to rest against the glass and felt the fleeting heat of the Vulcan’s body through the barrier. How had he been so negligent to not realize his first officer had slipped by?

“Bones, Scotty...give me a minute alone, please.” It was a command veiled as a request and the two other men obeyed. The hand on his shoulder had belonged to the medical officer, and for a split second Jim did not think McCoy would comply, but then he felt nothing on his shoulder at all. He was alone with Spock.

He never thought silence could scream, never imagined it had a voice so forlorn and thick. But silence had volume, depth, shape, voice, form. Silence was tangible in that it could not be so easily cast aside, not now. Before it could have been ruined by a sigh, a joke, a soft groan, a pin tumbling down onto the ground. Now, nothing seemed appropriate, as if all the words belonging to his dictionary were not applicable to what he wanted to express.

But he had to try. He had once heard that the human brain stayed active for seven minutes subsequent to death. Spock has half human, so there was a chance the same rules applied to him. Jim only had a precious three minutes to tell him anything.

He had a flashback to the first time he had ever tasted Vulcan lips on his own. It had happened a month after the Pon Farr after a game of Tri-D Chess. There had been nothing said, no onset, no reason to even chance it, but Kirk took the risk. Neither had been truly focused on the game, given that Spock never explained the charged transference of emotional that happened on the sands of Vulcan, nor on the Enterprise. The first Kirk could understand given that Spock had briefly explained it beforehand, but the second time, he was not as sure. He had received signals from Spock before, small waves of humor, of approval, of disapproval, loyalty, and even on occasion genuine warmth.

What had happened in the Sickbay, however, was anything but small. Amongst relief and excitement, Jim had received something else from Spock. It exceeded the warmth of friendship and was stronger than the loyalty of a crewman. And for the next month, Kirk spent a majority of his time evaluating and reevaluating the sensation. He had never openly admitted to his attraction to Spock, though it was there, and never had he considered that Spock would reciprocate any kind of intimate emotion.

Thus, he took a titanic leap of faith when the game was over and they were in the turbolift. Jim had brushed his fingers against Spock’s, knowing full well that Vulcans were sensitive to touch, and when his first officer did not pull his hand away or give him any indication to stop, he continued. Kirk commanded for the lift to stop and Spock looked at him in false confusion, but he did not speak.

The admiral had been grateful for that, at least, but he wasn’t going to force Spock to do anything he did not want to do. And so when he moved to face his first officer, he simply said, “If you’re uncomfortable with this, Spock, I need to know.”

As he hesitantly moved closer to Spock’s lips, the Vulcan had squeezed Jim’s hand in a vice-like grip, effectively stopping him in his tracks. A wave of panic washed over him, and he feared that he had taken a risk on false assumptions. Then something unexpected happened. The science officer closed the gap between them, then eagerly, hastily took Jim’s lips with his own.

Subsequent memories followed in abundance. The first time they made love, the first time they truly melded minds, the times they were nearly caught by Bones or other crewmates, the first time Spock had Italian, and many other firsts. The proverbial floodgates were blown wide open, but he did not know how to react. There were pangs deep in his abdomen at some, a light feeling in his heart at others. Regardless of what emotion came with which memory, nothing could dampen the isolation he felt. Too many years had gone by with Spock’s presence in his heart and mind, he had adjusted his whole person around feeling his bondmate’s mortality within him.

One minute left.

He inhaled slowly, unsure of what he wanted to say or how he wanted to go about saying it. However, he knew where to start.

“Spock,” began Jim shakily, his voice far too hoarse. He shifted closer to the Vulcan’s lifeless body and realized how desperately he wanted to be able to hold him. “I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to respect your wishes. How can I not grieve for you, of all people? Telling me not to grieve was the illogical action. Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing? We could have found another way. But you saved all of our lives, at the price of your own.” He worked his jaw after pausing.

Thirty seconds left.

“You never told me what it would feel like to have this separation, to have the best part of who you are pulled out from under you like a rug. I…”Another pause. Ten seconds. “You’ve earned a rest. I lo-”Jim could not complete the statement. Tears were edging at the corner of his eyes, but he would not submit to them. Not with personnel directly outside the doors.

‘ _Taluhk nash-veh k’dular, t’hy’la.’_

The admiral was not sure if he had imagined the words that fell into his mind. He wanted to believe with every fiber of his being that his imagination was not the orchestrator. He pressed his head against the glass, his forehead to the back of Spock’s. The door opened behind him, and without looking he instinctively knew it was McCoy. No one else would dare to enter at such a time.

“Jim, we’re going to have to send a team in there to get him out. You can’t be here when that happens. I’m sorry.” The doctor always managed to synthesize two emotions when he spoke, this time sympathy and objectivity joined hands.

He pulled himself away from the glass. “Yeah, I know, Bones. I was just…saying goodbye.” Jim forced himself to stand, but could not do so without keeping his eyes trained on Spock the entire time. Only when Bones cleared his throat did he turn away. Walking away was harder than he imagined it to be. Each muscle in his body protested and every cell screamed for him to turn around. He had to remind himself four times from the compartment to the door that Spock was no longer there. Just his body. A vessel to transport the soul.

As the two made their way to the crew deck, Bones returned his hand on Jim’s shoulder. The knowledge that his medical officer—and the rest of the crew—was alive because of Spock made a strong attempt to help him process the death, but he knew it would take time to learn to deal with it. He had processed the death of his brother better than this, but they were entirely different relationships. Regardless, Kirk had to gather himself enough to give a small speech at the funeral before they released him. So he focused on that, instead.


End file.
